7 Questions to Answer Before Accepting a Job Offer When you receive a job offer, its natural to be excited and even to assume that youll take it, as long as the salary range is right. But before you sign on to spend 40 or more hours a week at this job, make sure youve fully vetted what youre getting into. Here are seven key questions to ask yourself before saying yes. 1. Am I clear on what Ill be doing day to day? Job descriptions dont always tell the full story, and theyre often outdated or so vague as to be almost meaningless. Dont assume that you know what the job will be like on a daily basis simply from the job posting or, worse, the title. Make sure youve probed deeply into exactly how youll spend your time and what your most important responsibilities will be. 2. Do I know how my success will be judged? Are you clear on what the most important things for you to accomplish in the role will be? When the company is evaluating your performance a year from now, do you know how theyll assess it and what youll need to have achieved for your first year to be deemed a success? If you walk into a job without clarity on that point, you could end up realizing far too late that the companys definition of success is different from your own. 3. Will I be able to excel at this work? No matter how much you want or need a job, you should not bluff your way into a job for which you arent actually qualified. If the work doesnt play to your strengths, youll struggle and could even end up getting fired. Its great for a new job to push you to stretch yourself, but make sure it wont ask something of you that youre unlikely to succeed at. 4. Do I know what sort of culture Ill be working in? Aside from the details of the job itself, the culture of the place where youll be doing that work will have a huge impact on your comfort and quality of life. No matter how excited you are about the work youre doing, if youre uncomfortable in the culture, you might not be happy there. For instance, if the office is formal and rigidly hierarchical and you bristle at that type of environment, or if its an aggressive, competitive team and youre more low-key, this might not be a comfortable fit for you. 5. Do I know what type of manager Ill be working for? Theres plenty of truth behind the old saying that people leave bosses, not jobs. Your manager has an enormous influence on how happy youll be at work, so make sure youre clear about the management style of the person youll be working for. 6. Do I know all the details of the compensation package, including details of the health insurance and paid time off? Too often, people focus just on salary when evaluating a job offer. But you dont want to find out in your first week that the health insurance doesnt meet your familys needs or that you dont get any paid time off until after your first year. The time to nail down these details is before you accept the offer. 7. How does this job fit in with my overall career path? Will the job move you forward on the path you want to be on, or take you on a detour you might rather avoid? Sometimes you might deliberately take a job that isnt quite on your career path (because you need the money or need something flexible and short-term, for instance), and thats fine - but you want to make sure youre doing that deliberately and strategically, not without realizing it.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 06:04:08 +0000
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